"Team work pays off in this FBI K-9 thriller"

This FBI thriller is off to a swift start as a woman is
abducted and concealed at Arlington Cemetery. FBI specialist
K-9 teams are sent to try to find her BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
This turns out to be a sadistic serial killer story, but
readers can expect that the FBI is not called in to deal
with ordinary police work.

I previously enjoyed LONE
WOLF, first book in this FBI
K-9 series. We meet the same characters again, Meg
Jennings and her black Labrador Hawk in particular. Meg is
concerned that the kidnapping victim bears a visual
similarity to herself, and the next abducted woman is also a
close match in appearance. The women share a love of dogs
and the evil man seems to strike women dog walkers and
researches their families. He leaves taunting messages
telling the K-9 team to hurry and rescue the victims, but of
course, any harm done to them is his fault, not theirs. With
so little to go on, the team has to find the vile criminal
somehow.

I am always impressed by the talents of the highly trained
search dogs. Their handlers know to trust the dogs; also how
to give them the best opportunity to find their quarry. The
dogs are carefully fed and rested, praised and treated for
any cuts before being asked to work. Another character
recurring is the Washington Post journalist Clay McCord, a
former war correspondent. Clay and Meg's puzzle-solving
sister Cara decide that the coded messages relate to
historic Civil War locations. This opens up new avenues of
exploration for the crime fighters. But the personal
connections to Meg continue.

I enjoyed the decryption of the codes and the tour of
historic locations ranging from a prison watermill to a
tannery. The Civil War historical connections get too
detailed for me to worry about, but of course, American
readers would be more interested. I love the descriptions of
the natural preserves, including birds of prey. In
structure, this adventure is a treasure hunt, with a series
of clues and rewards. The criminology profiling and
rehashing of past clues for links, does create some
repetition. The action sequences are frequent and
fast-paced, though, with an ever-narrowing focus on Meg
herself. BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE is a carefully and cleverly
written thriller by Sara Driscoll, a pen name for a
two-woman team. They emphasize teamwork and in their case,
it certainly pays off.

SUMMARY

In this powerful K-9 crime thriller, FBI Special Agent
Meg Jennings and her trusted search-and-rescue Labrador,
Hawk, must race against the clock before a diabolical killer
strikes againâ€¦

Somewhere in the Washington, D.C., area, a woman lies
helpless in a box. Beneath the earth. Barely breathing.
Buried alive. In Quantico, the FBI receives a coded message
from the womanâ€™s abductor. He wants to play a game with
them: decipher the clues, find the grave, save the girl. The
FBIâ€™s top cryptanalysts crack the code and Special Agent Meg
Jennings and her K-9 partner, Hawk, scramble to the scene of
the crime. Cryptic clues lead them astray and by the time
they solve the puzzle, itâ€™s too late. But the killerâ€™s game
is far from over . . .

Soon another message arrives. Another victim is taken, and
the deadly pattern is repeatedâ€”again and again. Each
kidnapping triggers another desperate race against time,
each with the possibility of another senseless death. Thatâ€™s
when Meg decides to try something drastic. Break the
Bureauâ€™s protocol. Bring in her brilliant sister, Cara, a
genius at word games, to decipher the kidnapperâ€™s twisted
clues. Meg knows sheâ€™s risking her career to do it, but
sheâ€™s determined not to let one more person die under her
and Hawkâ€™s watch. If the plan fails, it could bite them in
the end. And if it leads to the killer, it could bury them
forever . . .